


Kellar Knows Best

by ladysaxobeat



Series: ATWQ Descendants Idea Dump [1]
Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket, All the Wrong Questions - Lemony Snicket, Descendants (Disney Movies), Disney - All Media Types
Genre: Multi, asoue/atwq descendants au, i'll fight gothel with my bare hands, kellar does not have a good time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21942169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysaxobeat/pseuds/ladysaxobeat
Summary: Two months after Kellar Gothel is taken in by Queen Rapunzel Fitzherbert of Corona, his mother finds him.
Relationships: Cassandra/Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel, Kellar Haines & Lizzie Haines, Mother Gothel & Kellar Haines
Series: ATWQ Descendants Idea Dump [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579942
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	Kellar Knows Best

**Author's Note:**

  * For [midas_touch_of_angst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/midas_touch_of_angst/gifts).



> merry christmas eve, connie!! have some fucking angst since you like it so much.

“And to this day, they still haven’t gotten my nose right!”

Kellar Gothel chuckled softly at King Eugene Fitzherbert’s joking rant. His sister, Lizzie, giggled softly. Oliver Fitzherbert, the young Prince of Corona, guffawed loudly, despite still having food in his mouth.

“That was a very funny story, sweetie,” Queen Rapunzel Fitzherbert praised, laughter in her voice.

“One that we’ve absolutely _never_ heard before,” teased Cassandra, the Captain of Corona’s Royal Guard.

Eugene stuck his tongue out at Cassandra, who returned the gesture. Oliver and Lizzie laughed again, while Rapunzel shook her head fondly at her partners’ antics. Kellar smiled a bit. He had only been living here for two months(not nearly as much as Lizzie’s five), but somehow, he felt as if he’d been here his whole life. In fact, in the eight going on nine weeks that he had been with the Coronians, Kellar sometimes found himself forgetting that he wasn’t one himself.

He still didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

“Miss Rapunzel?” Kellar asked softly.

“Yes, Kellar?” Rapunzel replied, turning her soft green eyes to him. 

It really wasn’t long ago that those eyes made him feel wary.

“I’m finished,” Kellar said, gesturing to his empty plate ~~as if she couldn’t see it or something, it’s right there, dumbass~~. “Can I, um, go up to, uh, my room?”

He almost swore he could hear a voice telling him to stop stuttering like a blithering idiot.

“Of course you can,” Rapunzel told him sweetly. “Cass will be up later to check your windows.”

Kellar nodded, standing up to set his plate in the sink. As soon as he left the dining area, Kellar let out a silent, yet shaky breath.

This always happened. It happened when he was on the streets, and it was happening now.

Kellar was thinking of _her_.

He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to remember what Rapunzel had told him to do when he felt like this. He took a deep breath, before slowly ascending the stairs.

“Let me make you proud…”

She wasn’t here.

“Let me show you the best in me…”

He didn’t have to fight or beg for her approval anymore.

“Let me give you a reason…”

She was not here.

“To believe…”

So why was he still thinking of her?

Kellar sighed, shaking his head as he entered his room. He closed the door, slumping against it as he dragged his hands down his face.

“She isn’t here,” he whispered. “She. Is. Not. Here.”

“Who isn’t here, love?”

Kellar’s eyes snapped open. 

No. No, no, he had to be hearing things, _imagining_ things. She wasn’t… She couldn’t be…

“Kellar, dear,” Gothel purred, “I asked you a question.”

Kellar stared. Then, he straightened his posture so that he wasn’t slouching, so that she couldn’t say anything about it.

“I wasn’t really referring to anyone, Mother,” he said softly.

Gothel scoffed. “You know I can’t understand you when you mumble, darling. But, no matter. There are more important things to discuss.” 

She lowered the hood of her cloak, shaking out her hair so that it looked less matted. 

Lizzie had their mother’s hair.

“More important things?” Kellar asked. “Like what?”

“This elaborate game of hide and seek you’ve been playing with me, dear,” Gothel said, giving him a look.

“Hide and seek?”

“Yes, Kellar,” Gothel sighed, as if Kellar should’ve automatically known what she was talking about. “Remember, when I left to go to the market, and you had vanished by the time I got back?”

Kellar did, in fact, remember that. Gothel had been gone for about an hour and a half, and Kellar, fueled by pure adrenaline, had sporadically packed a bag and decided that living on the streets would be better than living in a cottage without his sister.

“I’ve been searching for you for so long, Kellar,” Gothel continued. “Is this where you’ve been hiding all this time? With my _sworn enemy_?”

Kellar blinked. “You’ve been… looking for me?” 

This woman, who never had the time of day for him as a child. She was looking for him?

“Of course I’ve been looking for you, dear. You’re my son.” Gothel sighed again, a pout on her red lips. “But, it seems like you don’t need me anymore.”

For the first time in his life, his mother being right brings Kellar a feeling of triumph. He doesn’t need her. He didn’t need her help to survive three cold weeks on the streets, and he doesn’t need her now.

Looking directly into Gothel’s eyes, Kellar nodded.

“It’s true, I don’t.” Kellar stepped towards, watching her expression turn from pouty to shocked, “I survived on my own when I left you. I wasn’t attacked by ruffians or thugs, and quicksand was way less of a problem than you made it out to be. In fact, I’m beginning to think you lied about those things so I wouldn’t try to leave you.”

Gothel looked positively wounded at that statement. “Kellar! You know mummy would never lie to you!”

Kellar couldn’t stop from wincing at the nickname. “Last I checked, you never liked it when I used that name.”

Gothel’s eyes widened. She didn’t respond, and Kellar just felt tired. He was done with this. He shouldn’t have even started a conversation with her. He should just run downstairs and tell Rapunzel what was going on, instead of staying up here and indulging her--

“At least tell me why you came _here_ of all places?” 

Gothel sounded… meek, when she said that. Perhaps that was what pulled Kellar back in, what made him stay in the room with her,

Perhaps, deep down, he still cared about her.

“If I do tell you, will you finally leave?” Kellar asked wearily.

Gothel hesitated. “If that’s what you truly wish,” she sighed, “then, yes. I will leave.”

Kellar nodded. He wet his lips nervously, then exhaled.

“Miss Rapunzel found me while I was living on the streets,” Kellar told her.

Gothel frowned softly, her eyebrows knitting together.

“So, she’s ‘Miss Rapunzel’ now?”

Kellar winced again. He remembered the times when he was younger and more impressionable, when he’d call the blonde woman horrible and traitorous and all the other nasty things that Gothel would insist on calling her. Looking back on it, he hated that he clearly only did it because Gothel did.

“She’s not as horrible as I’d thought, or rather, as you wanted me to think,” Kellar retorted.

Gothel blinked. And then, she smiled that terrible, blank smile that she always smiled at him. 

That smile that meant Kellar had fallen into her trap.

“Oh, Kellar,” Gothel crooned softly, “you can’t possibly know that.”

“And why can’t I?” Kellar asked angrily, because no matter how many times his mother waves the bait in front of him, he never stops to consider that he shouldn’t take it.

“You can never be completely certain of one’s motives, my darling,” Gothel continued in that dangerously soft tone. “After all, she did snatch you off the streets.”

“She did not _snatch me_ \--”

“You can’t be sure what she was thinking.” Gothel cut off Kellar’s defensive remark. “Why, she probably took you in an attempt to get back at me.”

“It’s not like that!” Kellar snapped, getting lured closer and closer into his mother’s snare. “She and her partners are really caring. I think…” 

Kellar took a deep breath, and jumped for the bait.

“I think they might actually like me.”

Just like that, he’s caught in her web.

Gothel laughed.

“They like you?!” Gothel wiped a mirthful tear from her eye. “Oh, please, Kellar, that’s demented.”

“No, it’s n--”

“See, _this_ is why you never should’ve left,” Gothel continued, cutting him off again. “My dear, this _family bond_ that you’ve invented; it just proves you’re too naive to be here.”

Kellar went silent. Gothel approached him, slow as a lion about to pounce.

“Why would they like you? Come now, really? I mean, look at you!” She waved a perfectly manicured hand at Kellar’s person. “You think that they’re impressed?”

Kellar is suddenly transported back to the times when he felt he had to fight Lizzie for Gothel’s attention and approval. When he thought it’d be a good idea to put on one of Lizzie’s old dresses in a poor attempt to get her attention. When he had run back into his room sobbing, a bruise on his cheek and his mother screeching that if she ever caught him doing that again, he’d have much worse to worry about.

“Don’t be a dummy, and come with mummy. Mother…”

The feeling of nails against his skin made Kellar flinch. He slapped the hand away, his body shaking.

“NO!” he shouted.

It took a minute for both parties to fully register what just transpired. They both look at each other, shocked. 

Surprisingly, Kellar recovered first. He stepped back, halfway cowering, halfway frozen in fear.

Gothel narrowed her eyes at him, and Kellar is terrified.

“No.”

“Mother, I--”

“Oh.”

“Mother--”

“I see how it is.”

Kellar’s voice has left him. Gothel circled him, like a cat taunting her prey.

“Kellar knows best. Kellar’s so mature now. Such a clever, grown-up sir.”

Shutting his eyes, Kellar willed this to be an awful nightmare, willed this to not be real.

“Kellar knows best, but has he even considered that he might have been played by her?”

Kellar’s breath caught. He wanted to wake up, to run away, to do _something_.

“Why are you even here? She’s probably deceived you! Go ahead and ask, you’ll see.”

Gothel stopped in front of him.

“Trust me, my dear.” Kellar’s eyes shot open at the close proximity of the snap. “That’s how fast she’ll leave you. But I won’t say I told you so!”

Kellar’s eyes are misty, stinging with unshed tears. What if she’s right?

God, what if she’s _right_?

“So, Kellar knows best! But if he knew what I know, he’d go and put her to the test!”

Gothel approached the window, not even offering a glance back as she did.

“If she’s lying, don’t go crying: Mother knows best!!”

Just like that, she was gone.

It was almost like she’d never been there at all.

Kellar sank to the floor, wrapping his arms around himself. He attempted to take a deep breath, and began sobbing quietly instead.

Later, after Cassandra had burst into his room, sword brandished, and after Oliver and Lizzie had frantically asked what was wrong and he finally told them through his tears, and after Eugene had made him hot cocoa and Rapunzel had sung to calm him down, Kellar would lie awake in bed that night and wonder:

Was this truly how he wanted his story to go?


End file.
